PART III

THE RED HAWK

_Being the Story of Julian 20th_

CHAPTER I

THE DESERT CLANS

The January sun beat hotly down upon me as I reined Red Lightning in

upon the summit of a barren hill and looked down upon the rich land of

plenty that stretched away below me as far as the eye could see toward

the mighty sea that lay a day’s ride, perhaps, to the westward—the sea

that none of us had ever looked upon—the sea that had become as

fabulous as a legend of the ancients during the almost four hundred

years since the Moon Men had swept down upon us and overwhelmed the

Earth in their mad and bloody carnival of revolution.

In the near distance the green of the orange groves mocked us from

below, and great patches that were groves of leafless nut trees, and

there were sandy patches toward the south that were vineyards waiting

for the hot suns of April and May before they, too, broke into riotous,

tantalizing green. And from this garden spot of plenty a curling trail

wound up the mountainside to the very level where we sat gazing fiercely

down upon this last stronghold of our foes. When the ancients built that

trail it must have been wide and beautiful indeed, but in the centuries

that have elapsed man and the elements have sadly defaced it. The rains

have washed it away in places and the Kalkars have made great gashes in

it to deter us, their enemies, from invading their sole remaining lands

and driving them into the sea; and upon their side of the gashes they

have built forts where they keep warriors always. And well for them that

they do. It is so upon every pass that leads down into their country.

Since fell my great ancestor, Julian 9th, in the year 2122, at the end

of the first uprising against the Kalkars, we have been driving them

slowly back across the world. That was over three hundred years ago. For

a hundred years they have held us here, a day’s ride from the ocean.

Just how far it is we do not know; but in 2408 my grandfather, Julian

18th, rode alone almost to the sea. He had won back almost to safety

when he was discovered and pursued almost to the tents of his people.

There was a battle, and the Kalkars who had dared invade our country

were destroyed, but Julian 18th died of his wounds without being able to

tell more than that a wondrous rich country lay between us and the sea,

which was not more than a day’s ride distant. A day’s ride, for us,

might be anything under a hundred miles.

We are desert people. Our herds range a vast territory where feed is

scarce that we may be always near the goal that our ancestors set for us

three centuries ago—the shore of the western sea into which it is our

destiny to drive the remnants of our former oppressors. In the forests

and mountains of Arizona there is rich pasture, but it is far from the

land of the Kalkars where the last of the tribe of Or-tis make their

last stand, and so we prefer to live in the desert near our foes,

driving our herds great distances to pasture when the need arises,

rather than to settle down in a comparative land of plenty, resigning

the age-old struggle, the ancient feud between the house of Julian and

the house of Or-tis.

A light breeze moves the black mane of the bright bay stallion beneath

me. It moves my own black mane where it falls loose below the buckskin

thong that encircles my head and keeps it from my eyes. It moves the

dangling ends of the Great Chief’s blanket where it is strapped behind

my saddle. On the twelfth day of the eighth month of the year just gone

this Great Chief’s blanket covered the shoulders of my father, Julian

19th, from the burning rays of the summer’s desert sun. I was twenty on

that day and on that day my father fell before the lance of an Or-tis in

the Great Feud and I became The Chief of Chiefs.

Surrounding me today, as I sit looking down upon the land of my enemies,

are fifty of the fierce chieftains of the hundred clans that swear

allegiance to the house of Julian. They are bronzed and, for the most

part, beardless men. The insignias of their clans are painted in various

colors upon their foreheads, their cheeks, their breasts. Ochre, they

use and blue and white and scarlet. Feathers rise from the head bands

that confine their hair—the feathers of the vulture, the hawk and the

eagle. I, Julian 20th, wear a single feather. It is from a red-tailed

hawk—the clan-sign of my family.

We are all garbed similarly. Let me describe The Wolf, and in his

portrait you will see a composite of us all. He is a sinewy, well built

man of fifty, with piercing, gray-blue eyes beneath straight brows. His

head is well-shaped, denoting great intelligence. His features are

strong and powerful and of a certain fierce cast that might well strike

terror to a foeman’s heart—and does, if the Kalkar scalps that fringe

his ceremonial blanket stand for aught. His breeches, wide below the

hips and skin tight from above the knees down are of the skin of the

buck deer. His soft boots, tied tight about the calf of each leg, are

also of buck. Above the waist he wears a sleeveless vest of calfskin

tanned with the hair on. The Wolf’s is of fawn and white. Sometimes

these vests are ornamented with bits of colored stone or metal sewn to

the hide in various manners of design. From The Wolf’s headband, just

above the right ear, depends the tail of a timber-wolf—the clan-sign of

his family.

An oval shield, upon which is painted the head of a wolf, hangs about

this chief’s neck, covering his back from nape to kidneys. It is a

stout, light shield—a hard wood frame covered with bull hide. Around

its periphery have been fastened the tails of wolves. In such matters

each man, with the assistance of his women folk, gives rein to his fancy

in the matter of ornamentation. Clan-signs and chief-signs, however, are

sacred. The use of one to which he is not entitled might spell death for

any man. I say might, because we have no inflexible laws. We have few

laws. The Kalkars were forever making laws, so we hate them. We judge

each case upon its own merits, and we pay more attention to what a man

intended doing than what he did.

The Wolf is armed, as are the rest of us, with a light lance about eight

feet in length, a knife and a straight, two-edged sword. A short, stout

bow is slung beneath his right stirrup leather and a quiver of arrows is

at his saddle bow.

The blades of his sword and his knife and the metal of his lance tip

come from a far place called Kolrado and are made by a tribe that is

famous because of the hardness and the temper of the metal of its

blades. The Utaws bring us metal, also, but theirs is inferior and we

use it only for the shoes that protect our horses’ feet from the cutting

sands and the rocks of our hard and barren country.

The Kolrados travel many days to reach us, coming once in two years.

They pass, unmolested, through the lands of many tribes because they

bring what none might otherwise have and what we need in our

never-ending crusade against the Kalkars. That is the only thread that

holds together the scattered clans and tribes that spread east and north

and south beyond the ken of man. All are animated by the same

purpose—to drive the last of the Kalkars into the sea.

From the Kolrados we get meager news of clans beyond them toward the

rising sun. Far, far to the east, they say, so far that in a lifetime no

man might reach it, lies another great sea, and that there, as here upon

the world’s western edge, a few Kalkars are making their last stand. All

the rest of the world has been won back by the people of our own

blood—by Americans.

We are always glad to see the Kolrados come, for they bring us news of

other peoples, and we welcome the Utaws, too, though we are not a

friendly people, killing all others who come among us, for fear,

chiefly, that they may be spies sent by the Kalkars. It is handed down

from father to son that this was not always so, and that once the people

of the world went to and fro safely from place to place and that then

all spoke the same language; but now it is different. The Kalkars

brought hatred and suspicion among us, until now we trust only the

members of our own clans and tribes.

The Kolrados, from coming often among us, we can understand, and they

can understand us, by means of a few words and many signs, though when

they speak their own language among themselves we cannot understand

them, except for an occasional word that is like one of ours. They say

that when the last of the Kalkars is driven from the world we must live

at peace with one another, but I am afraid that that will never come to

pass, for who would go through life without breaking a lance or dipping

his sword point now and again into the blood of a stranger? Not The

Wolf, I swear, nor no more The Red Hawk. By The Flag! I take more

pleasure in meeting a stranger upon a lonely trail than in meeting a

friend, for I cannot set my lance against a friend and feel the swish of

the wind as Red Lightning bears me swiftly down upon the prey as I

crouch in the saddle, nor thrill to the shock as we strike.

I am The Red Hawk. I am but twenty, yet the fierce chiefs of a hundred

fierce clans bow to my will. I am a Julian—the twentieth Julian—and

from this year, 2434, I can trace my line back five hundred and

thirty-four years to Julian 1st, who was born in 1896. From father to

son, by word of mouth, has been handed down to me the story of every

Julian, and there is no blot upon the shield of one in all that long

line, nor shall there be any blot upon the shield of Julian 20th. From

my fifth year to my tenth I learned, word for word, as had my father

before me, the deeds of my forebears, and to hate the Kalkars and the

tribe of Or-tis. This, with riding, was my schooling. From ten to

fifteen I learned to use lance and sword and knife, and on my sixteenth

birthday I rode forth with the other men—a warrior.

As I sat there this day, looking down upon the land of the accursed

Kalkars, my mind went back to the deeds of the 15th Julian, who had

driven the Kalkars across the desert and over the edge of these

mountains into the valley below just one hundred years before I was

born, and I turned to The Wolf and pointed down toward the green groves

and the distant hills and off beyond to where the mysterious ocean lay.

“For a hundred years they have held us here,” I said. “It is too long.”

“It is too long,” replied The Wolf.

“When the rains are over The Red Hawk leads his people into the land of

plenty.”

The Rock raised his spear and shook it savagely toward the valley far

below. The scalp-lock fastened just below its metal-shod tip trembled in

the wind. “When the rains are over!” cried The Rock. His fierce eyes

glowed with the fire of fanaticism.

“The green of the groves we will dye red with their blood,” cried The

Rattlesnake.

“With our swords, not our mouths,” I said, and wheeled Red Lightning

toward the east. The Coyote laughed and the others joined with him as we

wound downward out of the hills toward the desert.

On the afternoon of the following day we came within sight of our tents

where they were pitched beside the yellow flood of The River. Five miles

before that we had seen a few puffs of smoke rise from the summit of a

hill to the north of us. It told the camp that a body of horsemen was

approaching from the west. It told us that our sentry was on duty and

that doubtless all was well. At a signal my warriors formed themselves

in two straight lines, crossing one another at their centers. A moment

later another smoke signal arose informing the camp that we were friends

and us that our signal had been rightly read.

Presently, in a wild charge, whooping and brandishing our spears, we

charged down among the tents. Dogs, children and slaves scampered for

safety, the dogs barking, the children and the slaves yelling and

laughing. As we swung ourselves from our mounts before our tents, slaves

rushed out to seize our bridle reins, the dogs leaped, growling, upon us

in exuberant welcome, while the children fell upon their sires, their

uncles or their brothers, demanding the news of the ride or a share in

the spoils of conflict or chase. Then we went in to our women.

I had no wife, but there were my mother and my two sisters, and I found

them awaiting me in the inner tent, seated upon a low couch that was

covered, as was the floor, with the bright blankets that our slaves

weave from the wool of sheep. I knelt and took my mother’s hand and

kissed it and then I kissed her upon the lips and in the same fashion I

saluted my sisters, the elder first. It is custom among us; but it is

also our pleasure, for we both respect and love our women. Even if we

did not, we should appear to, if only for the reason that the Kalkars do

otherwise. They are brutes and swine. We do not permit our women a voice

in the councils of the men, but none the less do they influence our

councils from the seclusion of their inner tents. It is indeed an

unusual mother among us who does not make her voice heard in the council

ring, through her husband or her sons, and she does it through the love

and respect in which they hold her and not by scolding and nagging. They

are wonderful, our women. It is for them and The Flag that we have

fought the foe across a world for three hundred years. It is for them

that we shall go forth and drive him into the sea.

As the slaves prepared the evening meal I chatted with my mother and my

sisters. My two brothers, The Vulture and Rain Cloud, lay also at my

mother’s feet. The Vulture was eighteen, a splendid warrior, a true

Julian. Rain Cloud was sixteen then, and I think the most beautiful

creature I had ever seen. He had just become a warrior, but so sweet and

lovable was his disposition that the taking of human life seemed a most

incongruous calling for him, yet he was a Julian and there was no

alternative. Everyone loved him and respected him too, even though he

had never excelled in feats of arms for which he seemed to have no

relish; but they respected him because they knew that he was brave and

that he would fight as courageously as any of them, even though he might

have no stomach for it. Personally, I considered Rain Cloud braver than

I, for I knew that he would do well the thing he hated while I would be

only doing well the thing I loved.

The Vulture resembled me in looks and the love of blood, so we left Rain

Cloud at home to help guard the women and the children, which was no

disgrace since it is a most honorable and sacred trust, and we went

forth to the fighting when there was likely to be any, and when there

wasn’t we went forth and searched for it. How often have I ridden the

trails leading in across our vast frontiers longing for sight of a

strange horseman against whom I might bend my lance! We asked no

questions then when we had come close enough to see the clan-sign of the

stranger and to know that he was of another tribe and likely he was as

keen for the fray as we, otherwise he would have tried to avoid us. We

each drew rein at a little distance and set his lance, and each called

aloud his name, and then with a mighty oath each bore down upon the

other, and then one rode away with a fresh scalp-lock, and a new horse

to add to his herd, while the other remained to sustain the vulture and

the coyote.

Two or three of our great, shaggy hounds came in and sprawled among us

as we lay talking with mother and the two girls, Nallah and Neeta.

Behind my mother and sisters squatted three slave girls, ready to do

their bidding, for our women do no labor. They ride and walk and swim

and keep their bodies strong and fit that they may bear mighty warriors,

but labor is beneath them as it is beneath us. We hunt and fight and

tend our own herds, for that is not menial, but all other labor the

slaves perform. We found them here when we came. They have been here

always—a stolid, dark skinned people, weavers of blankets and baskets,

makers of pottery, tillers of the soil. We are kind to them and they are

happy. The Kalkars, who preceded us, were not kind to them—it has been

handed down to them from father to son for over a hundred years that the

Kalkars were cruel to them and they hate their memory, yet, were we to

be driven away by the Kalkars, these simple people would remain and

serve anew their cruel masters, for they will never leave their soil.

They have strange legends of a far time when great horses of iron raced

across the desert dragging iron tents filled with people behind them,

and they point to holes in the mountain sides through which these iron

monsters made their way to the green valleys by the sea, and they tell

of men who flew like birds and as swiftly, but of course we know that

such things were never true and are but the stories that the old men and

the women among them told to the children for their amusement. However,

we like to listen to them.

I told my mother of my plans to move down into the valley of the Kalkars

after the rains. She was silent some time before replying.

“Yes, of course,” she said; “you would be no Julian were you not to

attempt it. At least twenty times before in a hundred years have our

warriors gone down in force into the valley of the Kalkars and been

driven back. I wish that you might have taken a wife and left a son to

be Julian 21st before you set out upon this expedition from which you

may not return. Think well of it, my son, before you set forth. A year

or two will make no great difference. But you are The Great Chief and if

you decide to go we can but wait here for your return and pray that all

is well with you.”

“But you do not understand, Mother,” I replied. “I said that we are

going to move down into the valley of the Kalkars after the rains. I did

not say that we are coming back again. I did not say that you would

remain here and wait for our return. You will accompany us. The tribe of

Julian moves down into the valley of the Kalkars when the rains are

over, and they take with them their women and their children and their

tents and all their flocks and herds and every other possession that is

movable, and—they do not return to live in the desert ever more.”

She did not reply, but only sat in thought. Presently a man-slave came

to bid us warriors to the evening meal. The women and the children eat

this meal within their tents, but the warriors gather around a great,

circular table, called The Council Ring.

There were a hundred of us there that night. Flares in the hands of

slaves gave us light and there was light from the cooking fire that

burned within the circle formed by the table. The others remained

standing until I had taken my seat which was the signal that the eating

might begin. Before each warrior was an earthenware vessel containing

beer and another filled with wine, and there were slaves whose duty it

was to keep these filled, which was no small task, for we are hearty men

and great drinkers, though there is no drunkenness among us as there is

among the Kalkars. Other slaves brought meat and vegetables—beef and

mutton, both boiled and broiled, potatoes, beans and corn, and there

were bowls of figs and dried grapes and dried plums. There were also

venison and bear meat and fish. There was a great deal of talk and a

great deal of laughter, loud and boisterous, for the evening meal in the

home camp is always a gala event. We ride hard and we ride often and we

ride long. Often we are fighting and much of the time away from home.

Then we have little to eat and nothing to drink but water, which is

often warm and unclean and always scarce in our country.

We sit upon a long bench that encircles the outer periphery of the table

and as I took my seat, the slaves, bearing platters of meat, passed

along the inner rim of the table, and as they came opposite each warrior

he rose, and leaning far across the board, seized a portion of meat with

a thumb and finger and cut it deftly away with his sharp knife. The

slaves moved in slow procession without pause and there was a constant

gleam and flash of blades and movement and change of color as the

painted warriors rose and leaned across the table, the firelight playing

upon their beads and metal ornaments and the gay feathers of their

headdresses. And the noise!

Pacing to and fro behind the warriors were two or three score shaggy

hounds waiting for the scraps that would presently be tossed

them—large, savage beasts bred to protect our flocks from coyote and

wolf, hellhound and lion, and capable of doing it, too.

As the warriors fell to eating the din subsided, and at a word from me a

youth at my elbow struck a deep note from a drum. Instantly there was

silence.

“For a hundred years we have dwelt beneath the heat of this barren waste

land while our foes occupied a flowering garden, their cheeks fanned by

the cooling breezes of the sea. They live in plenty; their women eat of

luscious fruits, fresh from the trees, while ours must be satisfied with

the dried and wrinkled semblance of the real; ten slaves they have to do

their labor for every one that we possess; their flocks and herds find

lush pasture and sparkling water beside their masters’ tents, while ours

pick a scant existence across forty thousand square miles of sandy,

rock-bound desert; but these things gall the soul of The Red Hawk least

of all. The wine turns bitter in my mouth when in my mind’s eye I look

out across the rich valleys of the Kalkars and I recall that here alone

in all the world that we know there flies not The Flag.”

A great growl rose from the fierce throats. “Since my youth I have held

one thought sacred in my breast against the day that the blanket of The

Great Chief should fall upon my shoulders. That day has come and I but

await the time that the rains shall be safely over before making of that

thought a deed. Twenty times in a hundred years have the Julian warriors

ridden down into the Kalkar country in force, but their women and their

children and their flocks remained behind in the desert—an unescapable

argument for their return.

“It shall not be so again. In April the tribe of Julian leaves the

desert forever. With our tents and our women and all our flocks and

herds we shall descend and live among the orange groves. This time there

shall be no turning back. I, The Red Hawk, have spoken.”

CHAPTER II

EXODUS

April arrived and with it the clans, coming at my bidding. Soon there

would be little danger of heavy rains in the coast valleys. To have been

caught there in a week of rain with an army would have been fatal, for

the mud is deep and sticky and our horses would have mired and the

Kalkars fallen upon us and destroyed us. They greatly outnumber us, and

so our only hope must lie in our mobility. We realize that we are

reducing this by taking along our women and our flocks, but we believe

that so desperate will be our straits that we must conquer, since the

only alternative to victory must be death—death for us and worse for

our women and children.

The clans have been gathering for two days and all are here—some fifty

thousand souls, and of horses, cattle and sheep there must be a thousand

thousand, for we are rich in live stock. In the past two months, at my

orders, all our swine have been slaughtered and smoked, for we could not

be hampered by them on the long desert march, even if they could have

survived it.

There is water in the desert this time of year and some feed, but it

will be a hard, a terrible march. We shall lose a great deal of our

stock, one in ten, perhaps; The Wolf thinks it may be as high as five in

ten. We shall start tomorrow an hour before sunset, making a short march

of about ten miles to a place where there is a spring along the trail

the ancients used. It is strange to see all across the desert evidence

of the great work they accomplished. After five hundred years the

location of their well graded trail, with its wide, sweeping curves, is

plainly discernible. It is a narrow trail, but there are signs of

another, much wider, that we discover occasionally. It follows the

general line of the other, crossing it and recrossing it, without any

apparent reason, time and time again. It is almost obliterated by

drifting sand, or washed away by the rains of ages. Only where it is of

a material like stone has it endured. The pains those ancients took with

things! The time and men and effort they expended! And for what? They

have disappeared and their works with them.

As we rode that first night Rain Cloud rode often at my side and, as

usual, he was gazing at the stars.

“There is so much that we do not know,” sighed Rain Cloud; “yet all that

we can spare the time for is thoughts of fighting. I shall be glad when

we have chased the last of the Kalkars into the sea, so that some of us

may sit down in peace and think.”

“It is handed down to us that the ancients prided themselves upon their

knowledge, but what did it profit them? I think we are happier. They

must have had to work all their lives to do the things they did and to

know all the things they knew, yet they could eat no more, or sleep no

more, or drink no more in a lifetime than can we. And now they are gone

forever from the Earth and all their works with them and all their

knowledge is lost.”

“And presently we will be gone,” said Rain Cloud.

“And we will have left as much as they to benefit those who follow,” I

replied.

“Perhaps you are right, Red Hawk,” said Rain Cloud; “yet I cannot help

wanting to know more than I do know.”

The second march was also made at night and was a little longer than the

first. We had a good moon and the desert night was bright. The third

march was about twenty-five miles and the fourth a short one, only ten

miles; and there we left the trail of the ancients and continued in a

southwesterly direction to a trail that followed a series of springs

that gave us short marches the balance of the way to a lake called Bear

by our slaves. The way, of course, was all well known to us, and so we

knew just what was ahead and dreaded the fifth march, which was a

terrible one, by far the worst of them all. It lay across a rough and

broken area of desert and crossed a range of barren mountains—for

forty-five miles it wound its parched way from water hole to water hole.

For horsemen alone it would have been but a hard march, but with cattle

and sheep to herd across that waterless waste, it became a terrific

undertaking. Every beast that was strong enough carried hay, oats or

barley in sacks, for we could not depend entirely upon the sparse feed

of the desert for so huge a caravan; but water we could not carry in

sufficient quantities for the stock, transporting enough, however, on

the longer marches to insure a supply for the women and all children

under sixteen, and on the short marches enough for nursing mothers and

children under ten.

We rested all day before the fifth march began, setting forth about

three hours before sundown. From fifty camps in fifty parallel lines we

started. Every man, woman and child was mounted. The women carried all

children under five, usually seated astride a blanket on the horse’s

rump behind the mother. The rest rode alone. The bulk of the warriors

and all the women and children set out ahead of the herds, which

followed slowly behind, each bunch securely hemmed in by outriders and

followed by a rearguard of warriors.

A hundred men on swift horses rode at the head of the column, and as the

night wore on, gradually increased their lead until they were out of

sight of the remainder of the caravan. Their duty was to reach the camp

site ahead of the others and fill the water tanks that slaves had been

preparing for the past two months. We took but few slaves with us, only

a few personal attendants for the women and such others as did not wish

to be separated from their masters and had chosen to accompany us. For

the most part the slaves preferred to remain in their own country and we

were willing to let them, since it made fewer mouths to feed upon the

long journey and we knew that in the Kalkar country we should find

plenty to take their places, as we would take those from the Kalkars we

defeated.

The long, tiresome march was over at last. The years of thought that I

had given it, the two months of preparation that had immediately

preceded it, the splendid condition of all our stock, the training and

the temper of my people bore profitable fruit and we came through

without the loss of a man, woman or child, and with the loss of less

than two in a hundred of our herds and flocks. The mountain crossing on

that memorable fifth march took the heaviest toll, fully ten thousand

head, mostly lambs and calves, falling by the trail side.

With two days out for rest, we came, at the end of the tenth march and

the twelfth day, to the lake called Bear and into a rich mountain

country, lush with feed and game. Here deer and wild goats and wild

sheep abounded, with rabbit and quail and wild chicken and the beautiful

wild cattle that the legends of our slaves say are descended from the

domestic stock of the ancients.

It was not my plan to rest here longer than was necessary to fully

restore the strength and spirits of the stock. Our horses were not jaded

as we had had sufficient to change often. In fact we warriors had not

ridden our war-horses once upon the journey. Red Lightning had trotted

into the last camp fat and sleek.

To have remained here long would have been to have apprised the enemy of

our plans, for the Kalkars and their slaves hunt in these mountains

which adjoin their land, and should a single hunter see this vast

concourse of Julians, our coming would have been known throughout the

valleys in a single day and our purpose guessed by all.

So, after a day of rest, I sent The Wolf and a thousand warriors

westward to the main pass of the ancients with orders to make it appear

that we were attempting to enter the valley there in force. For three

days he would persist in this false advance and in that time I felt that

I should have drawn all the Kalkar fighting men from the valley lying

southwest of the lake of the Bear. My lookouts were posted upon every

eminence that gave view of the valleys and the trails between the main

pass of the ancients and that through which we should pour down from the

Bear out into the fields and groves of the Kalkars.

The third day was spent in preparation. The last of the arrows were

finished and distributed. We looked to our saddle leathers and our

bridles. We sharpened our swords and knives once more and put keener

points upon our lances. Our women mixed the war paint and packed our

belongings again for another march. The herds were gathered in and held

in close, compact bunches. Riders reported to me at intervals from the

various lookouts and from down the trail to the edge of the Kalkar

farms. No enemy had seen us, but that they had seen The Wolf and his

warriors we had the most reassuring evidence in the reports from our

outposts that every trail from south and west was streaming with Kalkar

warriors converging upon the pass of the ancients.[1]

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[1] Probably Cajon Pass.

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During the third day we moved leisurely down the mountain trails and as

night fell our vanguard of a thousand warriors debouched into the groves

of the Kalkars. Leaving four thousand warriors, mostly youths, to guard

the women, the children, the flocks and the herds I set out rapidly in a

northwesterly direction toward the pass of the ancients at the head of

full twenty thousand warriors.

Our war-horses we had led all day as we came slowly out of the mountains

riding other animals, and not until we were ready to start upon the

twenty-five mile march to the pass of the ancients did we saddle and

mount the fleet beasts upon which the fate of the Julians might rest

this night. In consequence our horses were fresh from a two weeks’ rest.

Three hours of comparatively easy riding should see us upon the flanks

of the enemy.

The Rock, a brave and seasoned warrior, I had left behind to guard the

women, the children and the stock. The Rattlesnake, with five thousand

warriors, bore along a more westerly trail, after fifteen miles had been

covered, that he might fall upon the rear of the enemy from one point

while I fell upon them from another, and at the same time place himself

between their main body, lying at the foot of the pass, and the source

of their supplies and reinforcements.

With The Wolf, the mountains and the desert upon one side and The

Rattlesnake and I blocking them upon the south and the southeast, the

position of the Kalkars appeared to me to be hopeless.

Toward midnight I called a halt to await the report of scouts who had

preceded us and it was not long before they commenced to come in. From

them I learned that the camp fires of the Kalkars were visible from an

eminence less than a mile ahead. I gave the signal to advance. Slowly

the great mass of warriors moved forward. The trail dipped down into a

little valley and then wound upward to the crest of a low ridge, where a

few minutes later I brought Red Lightning to a halt. Before me spread a

broad valley bathed in the soft light of moon and stars. Dark masses in

the nearer foreground I recognized as orange groves even without the

added evidence of the sweet aroma of their blossoms that was heavy on

the still night air. Beyond, to the northwest, a great area was dotted

with the glowing embers of a thousand dying camp fires. I filled my

lungs with the cool, sweet air; I felt my nerves tingle; a wave of

exaltation surged through me; Red Lightning trembled beneath me. After

nearly four hundred years a Julian stood at last, upon the threshold of

complete revenge!

CHAPTER III

ARMAGEDDON

Very quietly we crept down among the orange groves, nearer, ever nearer

to the sleeping foe. Somewhere to the west of us, beneath the silvery

moon, The Rattlesnake was creeping stealthily forward to strike.

Presently the stillness of the night would be broken by the booming of

his war drums and the hoarse war-cries of his savage horde. It would be

the signal that would send The Wolf down from the mountain heights above

them and The Red Hawk from the orange groves below them to sink fang and

talon into the flesh of the hated Kalkars, and ever The Rattlesnake

would be striking at their heels.

Silently we awaited the signal from The Rattlesnake. A thousand bowmen

unslung their bows and loosened arrows in their quivers; swords were

readjusted, their hilts ready to the hand; men spat upon their right

palms that their lance grip might be the surer. The night dragged on

toward dawn. The success of my plan depended upon a surprise attack

while the foe slept. I knew that The Rattlesnake would not fail me, but

something must have delayed him. I gave the signal to advance silently.

Like shadows we moved through the orange groves and deployed along a

front two miles in length, a thousand bowmen in the lead and behind

these, line after line of lancers and swordsmen. Slowly we moved forward

toward the sleeping camp. How like the lazy, stupid Kalkars that no

sentries were posted at their rear. Doubtless there were plenty of them

on the front exposed to The Wolf. Where they could see an enemy they

could prepare for him, but they have not imagination enough to foresee

aught. Only the desert and their great numbers have saved them from

extermination during the past hundred years.

Scarce a mile away now we could catch occasional glimpses of the dying

embers of the nearest fires, and then from the east there rolled across

the valley the muffled booming of distant war drums. A momentary silence

followed and then faintly, there broke upon our ears the war-cries of

our people. At my signal our own drums shattered the silence that had

surrounded us. It was the signal for the charge. From twenty thousand

savage throats rose the awful cries of battle, twenty thousand pairs of

reins were loosed and eighty thousand iron-shod hoofs set the earth

atremble as they thundered down upon the startled enemy, and from the

heights above came the growl of the drums of The Wolf and the eerie

howls of his painted horde.

It was dawn as we smote the camp. Our bowmen, guiding their mounts with

their knees and the swing of their bodies, raced among the bewildered

Kalkars, loosing their barbed shafts into the cursing, shrieking mob

that fled before them only to be ridden down and trampled by their

horses’ feet.

Behind the bowmen came the lancers and the swordsmen thrusting and

cutting at those who survived. From our left came the tumult of The

Rattlesnake’s assault and from far ahead and above us the sounds of

battle proclaimed that The Wolf had fallen on the foe.

Ahead I could see the tents of the Kalkar leaders and toward these I

spurred Red Lightning. Here would be the representatives of the house of

Or-tis and here would the battle center. Ahead the Kalkars were forming

in some semblance of order to check and repel us. They are huge men and

ferocious fighters, but I could see that our surprise attack had

unnerved them. They gave before us, before their chiefs could organize

them for resistance, yet again and again they reformed and faced us. We

were going more slowly now, the battle had become largely a matter of

hand-to-hand combats; they were checking us, but they were not stopping

us. So great were their numbers that even had they been unarmed it would

have been difficult to force our horses through their massed ranks. Back

of their front line they were saddling and mounting their horses, which

those who had borne the brunt of our first onslaught had been unable to

do. We had cut the lines to which their animals had been tethered and

driven them, terrified, ahead of us to add to the confusion of the

enemy. Riderless horses were everywhere, those of the Kalkars and many

of our own, whose riders had fallen in battle. The tumult was appalling,

for to the shrieks of the wounded and the groans of the dying were added

the screams of stricken horses and the wild, hoarse war-cries of

battle-maddened men, and underlying all, the dull booming of the war

drums. Above us waved The Flag, and here were the drums and a massed

guard of picked men. The Flag and the drums moved forward as we moved.

And near me was the clan flag of my family with the red hawk upon it and

with it were its drums. In all there were a hundred clan flags upon that

field this day, and the drums of each rolled out, incessantly, defiance

of the enemy.

Their horsemen now were rallied, and the dismounted men were falling

back behind them and presently a Kalkar chief upon a large horse

confronted me. Already was my blade red with their blood. I had thrown

away my lance long since, for we were fighting in too close quarters for

its effective use, but the Kalkar had his spear, and there was a little

open space between us. In the instant he crouched and put spurs to his

horse and bore down upon me.

He was a large man as most Kalkars are, for they have bred with that

alone in mind for five hundred years, so that many of them are seven

feet in height and over. He looked very fierce, did this fellow, with

his great bulk and his little, blood-shot eyes. He wore a war bonnet of

iron to protect his head from sword cuts and a vest of iron covered his

chest against the thrusts of sword or lance, or the barbed tips of

arrows. We Julians, or Americans, disdain such protection, choosing to

depend upon our skill and agility, not hampering ourselves and our

horses with the weight of all this metal.

My light shield was on my left forearm and in my right hand I grasped my

two-edged sword. A pressure of my knees, an inclination of my body, a

word in his pointed ear were all that was needed to make Red Lightning

respond to my every wish, even though the reins hung loose upon his

withers.

The fellow bore down upon me with a loud yell and Red Lightning leaped

to meet him. The Kalkar’s point was set straight at my chest and I had

only a sword on that side to deflect it, and at that I think I might

have done so had I cared to try, even though the Kalkar carries a heavy

lance and this one was backed by a heavy man and a heavy horse. With my

left hand I grasped Red Lightning’s mane and at the instant that the

Kalkar thought to see his point tear through my chest I swung from my

saddle and lay flat against Red Lightning’s near side, while the Kalkar

and his spear brushed harmlessly past an empty saddle. Empty for but an

instant though. Swinging back to my seat in the instant that I wheeled

Red Lightning I was upon the Kalkar from the rear even as the fighting

mass before him brought him to a halt. He was swinging to have at me

again, but even as he faced me my sword swung down upon his iron bonnet,

driving pieces of it through his skull and into his brain. A fellow on

foot cut viciously at me at the instant I was recovering from the blow I

had dealt the mounted Kalkar, so that I was able only to partially parry

with my shield, with the result that his point opened up my right arm at

the shoulder—a flesh wound, but one that bled profusely, though it did

not stay the force of my return, which drove through his collarbone and

opened up his chest to his heart.

Once again I spurred in the direction of the tents of the Or-tis, above

which floated the red banners of the Kalkars, around which were massed

the flower of the Kalkar forces; too thickly massed, perhaps, for most

effective defense, since we were driving them in from three sides and

packing them there as tightly as eggs in the belly of a she-salmon. But

now they surged forward and drove us back by weight of numbers, and now

we threw ourselves upon them again until they, in their turn, were

forced to give the ground that they had won. Sometimes the force of our

attack drove them to one side while at another point their warriors were

pushing out into the very body of the massed clans, so that here and

there our turning movements would cut off a detachment of the enemy, or

again a score or more of our own men would be swallowed by the milling

Kalkar horde, until as the day wore on, the great field became a jumbled

mass of broken detachments of Julian and Kalkar warriors surging back

and forth over a bloody shambles, the iron shoes of their reeking mounts

trampling the corpse of friend and foe alike into the gory mire.

Once, late in the afternoon, during a lull in the battle, I sat looking

about the chaos of the field. Red with our own blood from a score of

wounds and with the blood of friend and foe, Red Lightning and I stood

panting in the midst of the welter. The tents of the Or-tis lay south of

us—we had fought half way around them—but they were scarce a hundred

yards nearer for all those bitter hours of battle. Some of the warriors

of The Wolf were near me, showing how far that old, grey chief had

fought his way since dawn, and presently behind a mask of blood I saw

the flashing eyes of The Wolf himself, scarce twenty feet away.

“The Wolf!” I cried and he looked up and smiled in recognition.

“The Red Hawk is red indeed,” he bantered; “but his pinions are yet

unclipped.”

“And the fangs of The Wolf are yet undrawn,” I replied.

A great Kalkar, blowing like a spent hound, was sitting his tired horse

between us. At our words he raised his head. “You are The Red Hawk?” he

asked.

“I am The Red Hawk,” I replied.

“I have been searching for you these two hours,” he said.

“I have not been far, Kalkar,” I told him; “what would you of The Red

Hawk?”

“I bear word from Or-tis the Jemadar.”

“What word has an Or-tis for a Julian?” I demanded.

“The Jemadar would grant you peace,” he explained.

I laughed. “There is only one peace which we may share together,” I

said, “and that is the peace of death—that peace I will grant him, and

he will come hither and meet me. There is nothing that an Or-tis has the

power to _grant_ a Julian.”

“He would stop the fighting while you and he discuss the terms of

peace,” insisted the Kalkar. “He would stop this bloody strife that must

eventually annihilate both Kalkar and Yank.” He used an ancient term

which the Kalkars have applied to us for ages in a manner of contempt,

but which we have been taught to consider as an appellation of honor,

though its very meaning is unknown to us and its derivation lost in

antiquity.

“Go back to your Jemadar,” I said, “and tell him that the world is not

wide enough to support both Kalkar and Yank, Or-tis and Julian; that the

Kalkars must slay us to the last man or be slain.”

He wheeled his horse toward the tent of the Or-tis and The Wolf bade his

warriors let him pass. Soon he was swallowed by the close-packed ranks

of his own people, and then a Kalkar struck at one of us from behind and

the battle raged again.

How many men had fallen one might not even guess, but the corpses of

warriors and horses lay so thick that the living mounts could but climb

and stumble over them and sometimes barriers of them nearly man-high lay

between me and the nearest foeman so that I was forced to jump Red

Lightning over the gory obstacle to find new flesh for my blade. And

then, slowly, night descended until man could not tell foe from friend,

but I called to my tribesmen about me to pass along the word that we

would not move from our ground that night, staying on for the first

streak of dawn that would permit us to tell a Kalkar from a Yank.

All through the night we heard a considerable movement of men and horses

among the Kalkars, and we judged that they were reforming for the dawn’s

attack, and then quite suddenly and without warning of any sort, we saw

a black mass moving down upon us. It was the Kalkars—the entire body of

them—and they rode straight for us, not swiftly, for the corpse-strewn,

slippery ground prevented that; but steadily, overwhelmingly, like a

great, slow-moving river of men and horses. They swept into us and over

us, or they carried us along with them. Their first line broke upon us

in a bloody wave and went down and those behind passed over the corpses

of those that had fallen. We hacked until our tired arms could scarce

raise a blade shoulder high. Kalkars went down screaming in agony, but

they could not halt, they could not retreat, for the great, ever-moving

mass behind them pushed them onward, nor could they turn to right or

left because we hemmed them in on both flanks, nor could they flee

ahead, for there, too, were we.

Borne on by this resistless tide I was carried with it. It surrounded

me. It pinioned my arms at my sides. It crushed my legs. It even tore my

sword from my hand. At times, when the force ahead stemmed it for a

moment, and the force behind continued to push on, it rose in the center

until horses were lifted from the ground, and then those behind sought

to climb over the backs of those in front, until the latter were borne

to earth and the others passed over their struggling forms, or the

obstacle before gave way and the flood smoothed out and passed along

again between the flashing banks of Julian blades, hewing, ever hewing,

at the Kalkar stream. Never have I looked upon such a sight as the moon

revealed that night—never in the memory or the tradition of man has

there been such a holocaust. Thousands upon thousands of Kalkars must

have fallen upon the edge of that torrent as it swept its slow way

between the blades of my painted warriors, who hacked at the living mass

until their arms fell numb at their sides, and then gave way to the

eager thousands pressing from behind.

And ever onward I was borne, helpless to extricate myself from the

sullen, irresistible flood that carried me southward down the broadening

valley. The Kalkars about me did not seem to realize that I was an

enemy, or notice me in any way, so intent were they upon escape.

Presently we had passed the field of yesterday’s thickest fighting, the

ground was no longer strewn with corpses and the speed of the rout

increased, and as it did so the massed warriors spread to right and left

sufficiently to permit more freedom of individual action, still not

enough to permit me to worm my way from the current.

That I was attempting to do so, however, was what attracted attention to

me at first and then the single red hawk feather and my other trappings,

so different from those of the Kalkars.

“A Yank!” cried one near me and another drew his sword and struck at me,

but I warded the blow with my shield as I drew my knife, a pitiful

weapon wherewith to face a swordsman.

“Hold!” cried a voice of authority near by. “It is he whom they call The

Red Hawk, their chief. Take him alive to the Jemadar.”

I tried to break through their lines, but they closed in upon me, and

though I used my knife to good effect upon several of them they overbore

me with their numbers, and then one of them must have struck me upon the

head with the flat of his sword, for of a sudden everything went black,

and of that moment I remember only reeling in my saddle.

CHAPTER IV

THE CAPITAL

When I regained consciousness it was night again. I was lying upon the

ground, out beneath the stars. For a moment I experienced a sense of

utter comfort, but as my tired nerves awoke they spoke to me of pain and

stiffness from many wounds, and my head throbbed with pain. I tried to

raise a hand to it, and it was then that I discovered that my wrists

were bound. I could feel the matted stiffness of my scalp, and I knew

that it was caked with dried blood, doubtless from the blow that had

stunned me.

In attempting to move, that I might ease my cramped muscles, I found

that my ankles were fastened together as well as my wrists, but I

managed to roll over, and raising my head a little from the ground I

looked about and saw that I was surrounded by sleeping Kalkars and that

we lay in a barren hollow ringed by hills. There were no fires, and from

this fact and the barrenness and seclusion of the camp I guessed that we

were snatching a brief rest in hiding from a pursuing foe.

I tried to sleep, but could do so only fitfully, and presently I heard

men moving about and soon they approached and awakened the warriors

sleeping near me. The thongs were removed from my ankles shortly

thereafter, and Red Lightning was brought and I was helped into the

saddle. Immediately after, we resumed the march. A glance at the stars

showed me that we were moving west. Our way led through hills and was

often rough, evidencing that we were following no beaten trail, but

rather that the Kalkars were attempting to escape by a devious route.

I could only guess at the numbers of them, but it was evident that there

was not the great horde that had set forth from the battlefield below

the pass of the ancients. Whether they had separated into smaller bands,

or the balance had been slain I could not even conjecture; but that

their losses must have been tremendous I was sure. We travelled all that

day, stopping only occasionally when there was water for the horses and

the men. I was given neither food nor water, nor did I ask for either. I

would die rather than ask a favor of an Or-tis. In fact, I did not speak

all that day, nor did any of the Kalkars address me.

I had seen more Kalkars in the past two days than in all my life before

and was now pretty familiar with the appearance of them. They range in

height from six to eight feet, the majority of them being midway between

these extremes. There is a great variety of physiognomy among them, for

they are a half-caste race, being the result of hundreds of years of

interbreeding between the original Moon Men and the women of the Earth

whom they seized for slaves when they overran and conquered the world.

Among them there is occasionally an individual who might pass anywhere

for a Yank, in so far as external appearances are concerned; but the

low, coarse, brutal features of the Kalkar preponderate.

They wear a white blouse and breeches of cotton woven by their slaves

and long, woolen cloaks fabricated by the same busy hands. Their women

help in this work as well as in the work of the fields, for the Kalkar

women are no better than slaves, with the possible exception of those

who belong to the families of the Jemadar and his nobles. Their cloaks

are of red, with collars of various colors, or with borders or other

designs to denote rank. Their weapons are similar to ours, but heavier.

They are but indifferent horsemen. That, I think, is because they ride

only from necessity and not, as we, from love of it.

That night, after dark, we came to a big Kalkar camp. It was one of the

camps of the ancients, the first that I ever had seen. It must have

covered a great area, and some of the huge stone tents were still

standing. It was in these that the Kalkars lived or in dirt huts leaning

against them. In some places I saw where the Kalkars had built smaller

tents from the building materials salvaged from the ruins of the ancient

camp, but as a rule they were satisfied with hovels of dirt, or the

half-fallen and never-repaired structures of the ancients.

This camp lies about forty-five or fifty miles west of the battlefield,

among beautiful hills and rich groves, upon the banks of what must once

have been a mighty river, so deeply has it scoured its pathway into the

earth in ages gone.[2]

-----

[2] The camp described probably occupies the site of present-day

Pasadena.

-----

I was hustled into a hut where a slave woman gave me food and water.

There was a great deal of noise and excitement outside, and through the

open doorway I could hear snatches of conversation as Kalkars passed to

and fro. From what I heard, I gathered that the defeat of the Kalkars

had been complete and that they were flying toward the coast and their

principal camp, called The Capital, which the slave woman told me lay a

few miles southwest. This, she said, was a wonderful camp, with tents

reaching so high into the heavens that often the Moon brushed against

their tops as she made her way through the sky.

They had released my hands, but my feet were still bound and two Kalkars

squatted just outside the door of the hut to see that I did not escape.

I asked the slave woman for some warm water to wash my wounds and she

prepared it for me. Not only that, the kindly soul saw to my wounds

herself, and after they had been cleansed she applied a healing lotion

which greatly soothed them, and then she bound them as best she could. I

felt much refreshed by this, and with the food and drink in me was quite

happy, for had I not accomplished what my people had been striving after

for a hundred years—a foothold on the western coast? This first victory

had been greater than I had dared to hope, and if I could but escape and

rejoin my people I felt that I could lead them to the waters of the

ocean with scarce a halt while the Kalkars still were suffering the

demoralization of defeat.

It was while I was thinking these thoughts that a Kalkar chief entered

the hut. Beyond the doorway the score of warriors that had accompanied

him, waited.

“Come!” commanded the Kalkar, motioning me to arise.

I pointed to my tethered ankles.

“Cut his bonds,” he directed the slave woman.

When I was free, I arose and followed the Kalkar without. Here the guard

surrounded me and we marched away between avenues of splendid trees such

as I never had seen before, to a tent of the ancients, a partially

ruined structure of imposing height that spread over a great area of

ground. It was lighted upon the inside by many flares and there were

guards at the entrance and slaves holding other flares.

They led me into a great chamber that must be much as the ancients left

it, though I had seen from the outside that in other places the roof of

the tent had fallen in and its walls were crumbling. There were many

Kalkars in this place, and at the far end of the room, upon a platform,

one sat alone on a huge, carved bench—a bench with a high back and

arms.

I was led before this man. He had a thin face and a long, thin nose, and

cruel lips and crafty eyes. His features, however, were good. He might

have passed in any company as a full-blood Yank. My guard halted me in

front of him.

“This is he, Jemadar,” said the chief who had fetched me.

“Who are you?” demanded the Jemadar, addressing me.

His tone did not please me. It was unpleasant and dictatorial. I am not

accustomed to that, even from equals, and a Julian has no superiors. I

looked upon him as scum. Therefore I did not reply.

He repeated his question angrily. I turned to the Kalkar chief who stood

at my elbow. “Tell this man that he is addressing a Julian,” I said,

“and that I do not like his manner. Let him ask for it in a more civil

tone if he wishes information.”

The eyes of the Jemadar narrowed angrily. He half rose from his bench.

“A Julian!” he exclaimed. “You are all Julians—but you are _the_

Julian. You are the Great Chief of the Julians. Tell me,” his tone

became suddenly civil, almost ingratiating, “is it not true that you are

_the_ Julian, The Red Hawk who led the desert hordes upon us?”

“I am Julian 20th, The Red Hawk,” I replied; “and you?”

“I am Or-tis, the Jemadar,” he replied.

“It has been long since an Or-tis and a Julian met,” I said.

“Heretofore they always have met as enemies,” he replied. “I have sent

for you to offer peace and friendship. For five hundred years we have

fought uselessly and senselessly because two of our forebears hated one

another. You are the 20th Julian, I am the 16th Or-tis. Never before

have we seen one another; yet we must be enemies. How silly!”

“There can be no friendship between a Julian and an Or-tis,” I replied,

coldly.

“There can be peace,” he said, “and friendship will come later, maybe

long after you and I are dead. There is room in this great, rich country

for us all. Go back to your people. I will send an escort with you and

rich presents. Tell them that the Kalkars would share their country with

the Yanks. You will rule half of it and I will rule the other half. If

the power of either is threatened, the other will come to his aid with

men and horses. We can live in peace and our people will prosper. What

say you?”

“I sent you my answer yesterday,” I told him. “It is the same today—the

only peace that you and I can share is the peace of death. There can be

but one ruler for this whole country and he will be a Julian—if not I,

the next in line. There is not room in all the world for both Kalkar and

Yank. For three hundred years we have been driving you toward the sea.

Yesterday we started upon the final drive that will not stop until the

last of you has been driven from the world you ruined. That is my

answer, Kalkar.”

“Take him away,” cried the Jemadar. “Send this message to his people: I

offer them peace on these terms—they may have all the country east and

southeast of a straight line drawn from the pass of the ancients south

to the sea; we will occupy the country to the west and northwest of that

line. If they accept I will send back their Great Chief. If they refuse,

he will go to The Butcher, and remind them that he will not be the first

Julian that an Or-tis has sent to The Butcher. If they accept, there are

to be no more wars between our people.”

They took me back then to the hut of the old slave woman and there I

slept until early morning, when I was awakened by a great commotion

without. Men were shouting orders and cursing as they ran hurriedly to

and fro. There was the trampling of horses’ feet, the clank and clatter

of trappings of war. Faintly, as from a great distance, I heard

presently, a familiar sound and my blood leaped in answer. It was the

war cry of my people, and beneath it ran the dull booming of their

drums.

“They come!” I must have spoken aloud, for the old slave woman turned

toward me.

“Let them come,” she said. “They cannot be worse than these others, and

it is time that we changed masters. It has been long now since the rule

of the ancients, who, it is said, were not unkind to us. Before them

were other ancients, and before those still others. Always they came

from far places, ruled us and went their way, displaced by others. Only

we remain, never changing. Like the coyote, the deer and the mountains

we have been here always. We belong to the land, we are the land—when

the last of our rulers has passed away we shall still be here, as we

were in the beginning—unchanged. They come and mix their blood with

ours, but in a few generations the last traces of it have disappeared,

swallowed up by the slow, unchanging flood of ours. You will come and

go, leaving no trace; but after you are forgotten we shall still be

here.”

Now Kalkars entered the hovel. They came hurriedly and as hurriedly

departed, taking me with them. My wrists were tied again and I was

almost thrown upon Red Lightning’s back. A moment later we were

swallowed up by the torrent of horsemen surging toward the southwest.

Less than two hours later we were entering the greatest camp that man

has ever looked upon. For miles we rode through it, our party now

reduced to the score of warriors who guarded me. The others had halted

at the outskirts of the camp to make a stand against my people and as we

rode through the strange trails of the camp we passed thousands upon

thousands of Kalkars rushing past us to defend The Capital.

We passed vast areas laid out in squares, as was the custom of the

ancients, a trail upon each side of the square, and within, the

grass-grown mounds that covered the fallen ruins of their tents. Now and

again a crumbling wall raised its ruin above the desolation, or some

more sturdily constructed structure remained almost intact except for

fallen roof and floors. As we advanced, we encountered more and more of

the latter, built of that strange, rock-like substance, the secret of

which has vanished with the ancients.

My guard turned in beneath the high arched entrance of a mighty

structure. From the filth of its spacious floor rose mighty columns of

polished stone, richly variegated. The tops of the columns were carved

and decorated in colors and in gold. The place was filled with horses,

tied to long lines that stretched almost the length of the room, from

column to column. At one end a broad flight of stone steps led upward to

the second floor. After we had dismounted I was led up these steps.

There were many Kalkars coming and going. We passed them as I was

conducted along a narrow avenue of polished white stone upon either side

of which were openings in the walls leading to other chambers.

Through one of these openings we turned into a large chamber, and there

I saw again the Or-tis whom I had seen the night before. He was standing

before one of the openings overlooking the trail below, talking with

several of his nobles. One of the latter glanced up and saw me as I

entered, calling the Jemadar’s attention to me. Or-tis faced me. He

spoke to one near him who stepped to another opening in the chamber and

motioned to someone without. Immediately a Kalkar guard entered bringing

a youth of one of my desert clans. At sight of me the young warrior

raised his hand to his forehead in salute.

“I give you another opportunity to consider my offer of last night,”

said the Or-tis, addressing me. “Here is one of your own men who can

bear your message to your people if you still choose to condemn them to

a futile and bloody struggle and with it he will bear a message from

me—that you go to The Butcher in the morning if your warriors do not

retire and your chiefs engage to maintain peace hereafter. In that event

you will be restored to your people. If you give me this promise

yourself, you may carry your own message to the tribes of Julian.”

“My answer,” I replied, “is the same as it was last night, as it will be

tomorrow.” Then I turned to the Yank warrior. “If you are permitted to

depart, go at once to The Vulture and tell him that my last command is

that he carry The Flag onward to the sea. That is all.”

The Or-tis was trembling with disappointment and rage. He laid a hand

upon the hilt of his sword and took a step toward me; but whatever he

intended, he thought better of it and stopped. “Take him above,” he

snapped to my guard; “and to The Butcher in the morning. I will be

present,” he said to me, “to see your head roll into the dust and your

carcass fed to the pigs.”

They took me from the chamber then and led me up and up along an endless

stairway, or at least it seemed endless before we finally reached the

highest floor of the great tent. There they pushed me into a chamber the

doorway to which was guarded by two giant warriors.

Squatted upon the floor of the chamber, his back leaning against the

wall, was a Kalkar. He glanced up at me as I entered, but said nothing.

I looked about the bare chamber, its floor littered with the dust and

debris of ages, its walls stained by the dirt and grease from the bodies

that had leaned against it, to the height of a man. I approached one of

the apertures in the front wall. Far below me, like a narrow buckskin

thong, lay the trail filled with tiny people and horses no bigger than

rabbits. I could see the pigs rooting in the filth—they and the dogs

are the scavengers of the camp.

For a long time I stood looking out over what was to me a strange

landscape. The tent in which I was confined was among the highest of the

nearer structures of the ancients, and from its upper floor I could see

a vast expanse of tent roofs, some of the structures apparently in an

excellent state of preservation, while here and there a grass-grown

mound marked the site of others that had fallen. Evidences of fire and

smoke were numerous and it was apparent that whatever the ancients had

built of other materials than their enduring stone had long since

disappeared, while many of the remaining buildings had been gutted by

flame and left mere shells, as was attested by hundreds of

smoke-blackened apertures within the range of my vision.

As I stood gazing out over distant hills beyond the limits of the camp I

became aware of a presence at my elbow. Turning I saw that it was the

Kalkar whom I had seen sitting against the wall as I entered the

chamber.

“Look well, Yank,” he said, in a not unpleasant voice, “for you have not

long to look.” He was smiling grimly. “We have a wonderful view from

here,” he continued; “on a clear day you can see the ocean and the

island.”

“I should like to see the ocean,” I said.

He shook his head. “You are very near,” he said, “but you will never see

it. I should like to see it again, myself; but I shall not.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I go with you to The Butcher in the morning,” he replied, simply.

“You?”

“Yes, I.”

“And why?”

“Because I am a true Or-tis,” he replied.

“Why should they send an Or-tis to The Butcher?” I demanded. “It is not

strange that an Or-tis should send me, _the_ Julian; but why should an

Or-tis send an Or-tis?”

“He is not a true Or-tis who sends me,” replied the man, and then he

laughed.

“Why do you laugh?”

“Is it not a strange joke of Fate,” he cried, “that sees _the_ Julian

and _the_ Or-tis going to The Butcher together? By the blood of my

sires! I think our feud be over, Julian, at least so far as you and I

are concerned.”

“It can never be over, Kalkar,” I replied.

He shook his head. “Had my father lived and carried out his plans, I

think it might have ended,” he insisted.

“While an Or-tis and a Julian lived? Never!”

“You are young, and the hate that has been suckled into you and yours

from your mothers’ breasts for ages runs hot in your veins; but my

father was old and he saw things as few of my kind, I imagine, ever have

seen them. He was a kindly man and very learned, and he came to hate the

Kalkars and the horrid wrong the first Or-tis did the world and our

people when he brought them hither from the Moon, even as you and yours

have hated them always. He knew the wrong and he wished to right it.

Already he had planned means whereby he might get into communication

with the Julians and join with them in undoing the crime that our

ancestor committed upon the world. He was Jemadar, but he would have

renounced his throne to be with his own kind again. Our blood strain is

as clear as yours—we are Americans. There is no Kalkar or half-breed

blood in our veins. There are perhaps a thousand others among us who

have brought down their birthright unsullied. These he would have

brought with him, for they all were tired of the Kalkar beasts.

“But some of the Kalkar nobles learned of the plan, and among them was

he who calls himself Or-tis and Jemadar. He is the son of a Kalkar woman

by a renegade uncle of mine. There is Or-tis blood in his veins, but a

drop of Kalkar makes one all Kalkar, therefore he is no Or-tis.

“He assassinated my father, and then set out to exterminate every

pure-blood Or-tis and all those other uncontaminated Americans who would

not swear fealty to him. Some have done so to save their hides, but many

have gone to The Butcher. In so far as I know, I am the last of the

Or-tis line. There were two brothers and a sister, all younger than I.

We scattered and I have not heard of them since, but I am sure that they

are all dead.

“Yes, if my father had lived the feud might have been ended; but

tomorrow The Butcher will end it. However, the other way would have been

better. What think you, Julian?”

I stood meditating in silence for a long time. I wondered if, after all,

the dead Jemadar’s way would not have been better.

CHAPTER V

THE SEA

It seemed strange indeed to me that I stood conversing thus amicably

with an Or-tis. I should have been at his throat, but there was

something about him that disarmed me, and after his speech I felt, I am

almost ashamed to say, something of friendliness for him. He was an

American after all, and he hated the common enemy. Was he responsible

for the mad act of an ancestor dead now almost four hundred years? But

the hate that was almost a part of my being would not down entirely—he

was still an Or-tis. I told him as much. He shrugged his shoulders.

“I do not know that I can blame you,” he said; “but what matters it?

Tomorrow we shall both be dead. Let us at least call a truce until

then.”

He was a pleasant-faced young fellow, two or three years my senior,

perhaps, with a winning way that disarmed malice. It would have been

very hard to have hated this Or-tis.

“Agreed!” I said, and held out my hand. He took it and then he laughed.

“Thirty-four ancestors would turn over in their graves if they could see

this,” he cried.

We talked there by the opening for a long time, while in the trail below

us constant streams of Kalkars moved steadily to the battle front.

Faintly, from a great distance, came the booming of the drums.

“You beat them badly yesterday,” he said. “They are filled with terror.”

“We will beat them again today and tomorrow and the next day until we

have driven them into the sea,” I said.

“How many warriors have you?” he asked.

“There were full twenty-five thousand when we rode out of the desert,” I

replied proudly.

He shook his head dubiously. “They must have ten, twenty times

twenty-five thousand,” he told me.

“Even though they have forty times twenty-five thousand we shall

prevail,” I insisted.

“Perhaps you will, for you are better fighters; but they have so many

youths growing into the warrior class every day. It will take years to

wear them down. They breed like rabbits. Their women are married before

they are fifteen, as a rule. If they have no child at twenty they are

held up to scorn, and if they are still childless at thirty they are

killed, and unless they are mighty good workers they are killed at fifty

anyhow—their usefulness to the State is over.”

Night came on. The Kalkars brought us no food or water. It became very

dark. In the trail below and in some of the surrounding tents flares

gave a weird, flickering light. The sky was overcast with light clouds.

The Kalkars in the avenue beyond our doorway dozed. I touched the Or-tis

upon the shoulder where he lay stretched beside me on the hard floor.

“What is it?” he whispered.

“I am going,” I said. “Do you wish to come?”

He sat up. “How are you going?” he demanded, still in a low whisper.

“I do not know, nor how far I shall go; but I am going, if only far

enough to cheat The Butcher.”

He laughed. “Good! I will go with you.”

It had taken me a long time to overcome the prejudices of heredity, and

I had thought long before I could bring myself to ask an Or-tis to share

with me this attempt to escape; but now it was done. I hoped I would not

regret it.

I arose and moved cautiously toward the doorway. A wick, burning from

the nozzle of a clay vessel filled with oil, gave forth a sickly light.

It shone upon two hulking Kalkars nodding against the wall as they sat

upon the stone floor of the avenue. My knife, of course, had been taken

from me and I was unarmed; but here was a sword within my reach and

another for the Or-tis. The hilt of one protruded from beneath the cloak

of the nearer Kalkar. My hand, reaching forth, was almost upon it when

he moved. I could not wait to learn if he was awaking or but moving in

his sleep. I lunged for the hilt, grasped it and the fellow was awake.

At the same instant the Or-tis sprang upon the other.

He whom I had attacked lumbered to his feet, clawing at the hand that

had already half drawn his sword from its scabbard, and at the same time

he set up a terrific yelling. I struck him on the jaw with my clenched

fist. I struck him as hard as I could strike, as he loomed above me his

full eight feet. The Or-tis was having a bad time with his man, who had

seized him by the throat and was trying to draw a knife to finish him.

The knife must have become stuck in its scabbard for a moment, or his

long, red cloak was in the way. I do not know. I saw only a flash of it

from the corner of my eye as my man stiffened and then sank to the

floor. Then I wheeled upon the other, a naked blade in my hand. He threw

the Or-tis aside when he saw me and whipped out his own sword, but he

was too slow. As I ran my point into his heart I heard the sound of

running footsteps ascending the stairway and the shouts of men. I handed

the sword I carried to the Or-tis and snatched the other from the fellow

I had just finished. Then I kicked the puny flare as far as I could kick

it and called to the Or-tis to follow me. The light went out and

together we ran along the dark avenue toward the stairway, up which we

could hear the warriors coming in response to the cries of our late

antagonists.

We reached the head of the stairs but a moment before the Kalkars

appeared. There were three of them, and one carried a weak, smoking

flare that did little but cast large, grotesque, dancing shadows upon

wall and stair and reveal our targets to us without revealing us to

them.

“Take the last one,” I whispered to the Or-tis.

We leaned over the railing and as he smote the head of the last of the

three I finished the second. The first, carrying the flare, turned to

find himself facing two swords. He gave a shriek and started down the

avenue. That would not do. If he had kept still we might have let him

live, for we were in a hurry; but he did not keep still and so we

pursued him. He reminded me of a comet as he fled through the dark with

his tail of light, only it was such a little tail. However, he was a

little comet. He was a fast comet, though, and we could not catch him

until the end of the avenue brought him to bay, then, in turning, he

slipped and fell. I was upon him in the same instant, but some fancy

stayed my blade when I might have run it through him. Instead I seized

him, before he could recover himself, and lifting him from the floor I

hurled him through the aperture at the end of the avenue. He still clung

to his lamp and as I leaned out above him he appeared a comet indeed,

though he was quickly extinguished in the courtyard far below.

The Or-tis chuckled at my elbow. “The stupid clod!” he ejaculated. “He

clung to that flare even to death, when, had he thrown it away and

dodged into one of these many chambers he could have eluded us and still

lived.”

“Perhaps he needed it to light his way to Hell,” I suggested.

“They need no help in that direction,” the Or-tis assured me, “for they

will all get there, if there be such a place.”

We retraced our steps to the stairway again, but once more we heard men

ascending. The Or-tis plucked me by the sleeve. “Come,” he whispered;

“it is futile to attempt escape in this direction now that the guard is

aroused. I am familiar with this place. I have been here many times. If

we have the nerve we may yet escape. Will you follow me?”

“Certainly,” I replied.

The corpses of two of our recent antagonists lay at our feet at the head

of the stairs, where we stood. Or-tis stooped and snatched their cloaks

and bonnets from them. “We shall need these if we reach the

ground—alive,” he said. “Follow me closely.”

He turned and continued along the corridor, presently entering a chamber

at the left. Behind us we heard the Kalkars ascending the stairs. They

were calling to their fellows above, from whom they would never receive

a reply; but they were evidently coming slowly, for which we were both

thankful.

Or-tis crossed the chamber to an aperture in the wall. “Below is the

courtyard,” he said. “It is a long way down. These walls are laid in

uneven courses. An agile man might make his way to the bottom without

falling. Shall we try it? We can go down close to these apertures and

thus rest often, if we wish.”

“You go on one side and I will go on the other,” I told him.

He rolled the two cloaks and the bonnets into a bundle and dropped them

into the dark void beneath, then we slid over the edge of the aperture.

Clinging with my hands I found a foothold and then another below the

first. The ledges were about half the width of my hand. Some of them

were rounded by time and the weather. These did not afford a very good

hold. However, I reached the aperture below without mishap and there, I

am free to confess, I was glad to pause for a moment, as I was panting

as though I had run a mile.

Or-tis came down in safety, too. “The Butcher appears less terrible,” he

said.

I laughed. “He would have it over quicker,” I replied.

The next stage we descended two floors before we halted. I like to have

slipped and fallen twice in that distance. I was wet with sweat as I

took a seat beside my companion. I do not like to recall that adventure.

It sends the shivers through me always, even now; but at last it was

over—we reached the bottom together and donned the cloaks and the

bonnets of the Kalkars. The swords, for which we had no scabbards, we

slipped through our own belts, the cloaks hiding the fact that they were

scabbardless.

The smell of horses was strong in our nostrils as we crept forward

toward a doorway. All was darkness within as we groped forward to find

that we were in a small chamber with a door at the opposite side. Nearly

all the doors of the ancients have been destroyed, either by the fires

that have gutted most of the buildings, by decay, or by the Kalkars that

have used them for fuel; but there are some left—they are the metal

doors, and this was one. I pushed it open enough to see if there was a

light beyond. There was. It was in the great chamber on the first floor

where the horses were tethered. It was not a brilliant light, but a sad,

flickering light. Even the lights of the Kalkars are grimy and unclean.

It cast a pallid luminance beneath it; elsewhere were heavy shadows. The

horses, when they moved, cast giant shadows upon the walls and floor and

upon the great, polished stone columns.

A guard loafed before the door that led to the trail in front of the

tent. It was composed of five or six men. I suppose there were others in

some nearby chamber. The doorway through which we peered was in shadow.

I pushed it open far enough to admit our bodies and we slipped through.

In an instant we were hidden from the sight of the guard, among the

horses. Some of them moved restlessly as we approached them. If I could

but find Red Lightning! I had searched along one line almost the full

length of the chamber and had started along a second when I heard a low

nicker close by. It was he! Love of The Flag! It was like finding my own

brother.

In the slovenly manner of the Kalkars, the saddles and bridles lay in

the dirt in the aisle behind the horses. Fortunately I found my own,

more easily, of course, because it is unlike those of the Kalkars, and

while I slipped them quietly upon Red Lightning, the Or-tis, selecting a

mount haphazard, was saddling and bridling it.

After a whispered consultation, we led our horses to the rear of the

room and mounted among the shadows, unobserved by the guard. Then we

rode out from behind the picket lines and moved slowly toward the

entrance, talking and laughing in what we hoped might appear an

unconcerned manner, the Or-tis riding on the side nearer the guard and a

little in advance, that Red Lightning might be hidden from them, for we

thought that they might recognize him more quickly than they would us.

As they saw us coming they ceased their chatter and looked up, but we

paid no attention to them, riding straight on for the aperture that led

into the trail outside the structure. I think we might have passed them

without question had there not suddenly burst from the doorway of what

was, I judge, the guard-room, an excited figure who shouted lustily to

all within hearing of his voice.

“Let no one leave! The Julian and the Or-tis have escaped!” he screamed.

The guard threw themselves across the entrance and at the same instant I

put spurs to Red Lightning, whipped out my sword, and bore down upon

them, the Or-tis following my example. I cut at one upon my left front

and Red Lightning bore down another beneath his iron hoofs. We were out

upon the trail and the Or-tis was beside us. Reining to the left we bore

south a few yards and then turned west upon another trail, the shouts

and curses of the Kalkars ringing in our ears.

With free rein we let our mounts out to far greater speed than the

darkness and the littered trail gave warrant, and it was not until we

had put a mile behind us that we drew in to a slower gait. The Or-tis

spurred to my side.

“I had not thought it could be done, Julian,” he said; “yet here we

ride, as free as any men in all the country wide.”

“But still within the shadow of The Butcher,” I replied. “Listen! They

are following hot-foot.” The pounding of the hoofs of our pursuers’

horses rose louder and louder behind us as we listened. Again we spurred

on, but presently we came to a place where a ruined wall had fallen

across the trail.

“May The Butcher get me!” cried the Or-tis, “that I should have

forgotten that this trail is blocked. We should have turned north or

south at the last crossing. Come, we must ride back quickly, if we are

to reach it before they.”

Wheeling, we put our mounts to the run back along the trail over which

we had but just come. It was but a short distance to the cross trail,

yet our case looked bad, for even in the darkness the pursuing Kalkars

could now be seen, so close were they. It was a question as to which

would reach the crossing first.

“You turn to the south,” I cried to the Or-tis, “and I will turn to the

north. In that way one of us may escape.”

“Good!” he agreed; “there are too many of them for us to stand and

fight.”

He was right—the trail was packed with them, and we could hear others

coming far behind the van. It was like a young army. I hugged the left

hand side of the trail and Or-tis the right. We reached the crossing not

a second in advance of the leaders of the pursuit and Or-tis turned to

the south and I to the north. Into the blackness of the new trail I

plunged and behind me came the Kalkars. I urged Red Lightning on and he

responded as I knew he would. It was madness to ride through the black

night along a strange trail at such speed, yet it was my only hope.

Quickly my fleet stallion drew away from the clumsy, ill-bred mounts of

my pursuers. At the first crossing I turned again to the west and though

here I encountered a steep and winding hill it was fortunately but a

short ride to the top and after that the way was along a rolling trail,

but mostly down hill.

The structures of the ancients that remained standing became fewer and

fewer as we proceeded and in an hour they had entirely disappeared. The

trail, however, was fairly well marked and after a single, short turn to

the south it continued westward over rolling country in almost a

straight line.

I had reduced my speed to conserve Red Lightning’s strength, and as no

sign of pursuit developed, I jogged along at a running walk, a gait

which Red Lightning could keep up for hours without fatigue. I had no

idea where the trail was leading me, and at the time I did not even know

that it was bearing west (for the heavens were still overcast), though I

judged that this must be the fact. My first thought was to put as much

distance as possible between me and the Kalkar camp and at the first

streak of dawn take to the hills and then work my way north and east in

an attempt to rejoin my people.

And so I moved on, through country that was now level and now rolling,

for the better part of three hours. A cool breeze sprang up and blew in

my face. It had a damp freshness and a strange odor with which I was

entirely unfamiliar. I was tired from my long exertions, from loss of

sleep and from lack of food and water, yet this strange breeze revived

me and filled me with new strength and life.

It had become very dark, although I knew that dawn must be near. I

wondered how Red Lightning could pick his way through the utter

blackness. This very thought was in my mind when he came to a sudden

halt. I could see nothing, yet I could tell that Red Lightning had some

good reason for his action. I listened and there came to my ears a

strange, sullen roar—a deep pounding, such as I never had heard before.

What could it be?

I dismounted to rest my beloved friend while I listened and sought for

an explanation of this monotonously reiterated sound. At length I

determined to await dawn before continuing. With the bridle reins about

my wrist I lay down, knowing that if danger threatened, Red Lightning

would warn me. In an instant I was asleep.

How long I slept I do not know—an hour, perhaps—but when I awoke it

was daylight and the first thing that broke upon my sensibilities was

the dull, monotonous booming, the pounding, pounding, pounding that had

lulled me to sleep so quickly.

Never shall I forget the scene that burst upon my astonished eyes as I

rose to my feet. Before me was a sheer cliff dropping straight away at

my feet, upon the very verge of which Red Lightning had halted the

previous night; and beyond, as far as the eye could reach, water—a vast

expanse of water, stretching on and on and on—the sea! At last a Julian

had looked upon it! It rolled up upon the sands below me, pounding,

surging, booming. It rolled back again, resistless, restless, and, at

once, terrifying and soothing. Terrifying in its immensity and mystery,

soothing in the majestic rhythm of its restlessness.

CHAPTER VI

SAKU THE NIPON

Hungry and thirsty, Red Lightning and I set off up the canyon away from

the sea, presently entering the first side-canyon[3] bearing in a

northerly direction, for it was my desire to pass through these

mountains in the hope of finding a valley running east and west, which I

could follow back in the direction of my people.

-----

[3] Probably Rustic Canyon, which enters Santa Monica Canyon a short

distance above the sea.

-----

We had proceeded only a short distance up the side-canyon when I

discovered a spring of pure water and around it an abundance of fine

pasture, and a moment later Red Lightning and I were drinking avidly

from the same pool. Then I removed his saddle and bridle and turned him

loose to browse upon the lush grasses, while I removed my clothing and

bathed my body, which was, by now, sorely in need of it. I felt much

refreshed and could I have found food should soon have been myself

again; but without bow and arrows my chances seemed slight unless I were

to take the time to construct a snare and wait for prey. This, however,

I had no mind to do, since I argued that sooner or later I must run

across human habitation, where, unless greatly outnumbered by armed men,

I would obtain food.

For an hour I permitted Red Lightning to line his belly with nutritious

grasses and then I called him to me, re-saddled, and was on my way again

up the wooded, winding canyon, following a well-marked trail in which

constantly appeared the spoor of coyote, wolf, hellhound, deer and lion,

as well as the tracks of domestic animals and the sandaled feet of

slaves; but I saw no signs of shod horses to indicate the presence of

Kalkars. The imprints of sandals might mark only the passage of native

hunters, or they might lead to a hidden camp. It was this that I hoped.

I had wound upward for perhaps two or three miles when I came suddenly

upon a little open meadow and the realization of my wish, for there

stood three of the pointed tents of slaves consisting of a number of

poles leaning inward and lashed together at the top, the whole covered

by a crazy patchwork consisting of the skins of animals sewn together.

These tents, however, were peculiar, in that they were very small.

As I came in sight of the camp I was discovered by a horde of scrawny

curs that came bristling and yapping toward me, apprising their masters

of the presence of a stranger. A head appeared in the opening of one of

the tents and was as quickly withdrawn. I called aloud that I would

speak with their chief and then I waited through a full minute of

silence. Receiving no reply I called again, more peremptorily, for I am

not accustomed to waiting long for obedience.

This time I received a reply. “Go away, Kalkar,” cried a man’s voice.

“This is our country. Go away or we will kill you.”

“But I am not a Kalkar. I have but just escaped them and I have been

long without food. I wish food and then I will go on, for I am in search

of my own people who are fighting the Kalkars at the edge of their great

camp to the east.”

He stuck his head through the flap then and eyed me closely. His face

was small and much wrinkled, and he had a great shock of stiff, black

hair that stuck out in all directions and was not confined by any band.

I thought that he must still be sitting or squatting upon the ground, so

low was his head, but a moment later, when, evidently having decided to

investigate my claims more closely, he parted the flap and stepped out

of the tent, I was startled to see a man little more than three feet

tall standing before me. He was stark naked and carried a bow in one

hand and several arrows in the other. At first I thought he might be a

child, but his old and wrinkled face, as well as the well-developed

muscles moving beneath his brown skin, belied that.

Behind him came two other men of about the same height and

simultaneously from the other two tents appeared six or eight more of

these diminutive warriors. They formed a semicircle about me, their

weapons in readiness.

“From what country do you come?” demanded the little chief.

I pointed toward the east. “From the desert beyond your farthest

mountains,” I replied.

He shook his head. “We have never been beyond our own hills,” he said.

It was most difficult to understand him, though I am familiar with the

dialects of a score of tribes and the mongrel tongue that is employed by

both the Kalkars and ourselves to communicate with the natives, yet we

managed to make ourselves understood to one another.

I dismounted and approached them, my hand held out toward them as is the

custom of my people in greeting friends, with whom we always clasp hands

after an absence, or when meeting friendly strangers for the first time.

They did not seem to understand my intentions and drew back, fitting

arrows to their bows.

I dropped my hand and smiled, at a loss as how best to reassure them.

The smile must have done it, for immediately the old man’s face broke

into a smile.

“You are not a Kalkar,” he said; “they never smile at us.” He lowered

his weapon, his example being followed by the others. “Tie your horse to

a tree. We will give you food.” He turned toward the tents and called to

the women to come out and prepare food.

I dropped my reins to the ground, which is all the tying that Red

Lightning requires, and advanced toward the little men, and when I had

thrown aside my Kalkar coat and bonnet they crowded around me with

questions and comment.

“No, he is not a Kalkar,” said one. “His cloak and bonnet are Kalkar,

but not his other garments.”

“I was captured by the Kalkars,” I explained, “and to escape I covered

myself with this cloak which I had taken from a Kalkar that I killed.”

A stream of women and children were now issuing from the tents, whose

capacity must have been taxed beyond their limit. The children were like

tiny toys, so diminutive were they, and, like their fathers and mothers,

quite naked, nor was there among them all the sign of an ornament or

decoration of any nature. They crowded around me, filled with

good-natured curiosity, and I could see that they were a joyous, kindly

little people; but even as I stood there encircled by them I could

scarce bring myself to believe in their existence, rather thinking that

I was the victim of a capricious dream, for never had I seen or heard of

such a race of tiny humans. As I had this closer and better opportunity

to study them, I saw that they were not of the same race as the slaves,

or In-juns, but were of a lighter shade of brown, with differently

shaped heads and slanting eyes. They were a handsome little people and

there was about the children that which was at once laughable and

appealing, so that one could not help but love them.

The women busied themselves making fire and bringing meat—a leg of

venison, and flour for bread, with fresh fruits, such as apricots,

strawberries and oranges. They chattered and laughed all the time,

casting quick glances at me and then giggling behind their hands. The

children and the dogs were always under foot, but no one seemed to mind

them and no one spoke a cross word, and often I saw the men snatch up a

child and caress it. They seemed a very happy people—quite unlike any

other peoples who have lived long in a Kalkar country. I mentioned this

fact to the chief and asked him how they could be so happy under the

cruel domination of the Kalkars.

“We do not live under their rule,” he replied. “We are a free people.

When they attempted to harass us, we made war upon them.”

“You made war upon the Kalkars?” I demanded, incredulously.

“Upon those who came into our hills,” he replied. “We never leave the

hills. We know every rock and tree and trail and cave, and being a very

little people and accustomed to living always in the hills we can move

rapidly from place to place. Long ago the Kalkars used to send warriors

to kill us, but they could never find us, though first from one side and

then from another our arrows fell among them, killing many. We were all

about them but they could not see us. Now they leave us alone. The hills

are ours from the great Kalkar camp to the sea and up the sea for many

marches. The hills furnish us with all that we require and we are

happy.”

“What do you call yourselves?” I asked. “From where do you come?”

“We are Nipons,” he replied. “I am Saku, chief of this district. We have

always been here in these hills. The first Nipon, our ancestor, was a

most honorable giant who lived upon an island far, far out in the middle

of the sea. His name was Mik-do. He lives there now. When we die we go

there to live with him. That is all.”

“The Kalkars no longer bother you?” I asked.

“Since the time of my father’s father they have not come to fight with

us,” replied Saku. “We have no enemies other than Raban, the giant, who

lives on the other side of the hills. He comes sometimes to hunt us with

his dogs and his slaves. Those whom he kills or captures, he eats. He is

a very terrible creature, is Raban. He rides a great horse and covers

himself with iron so that our arrows and our spears do not harm him. He

is three times as tall as we.”

I assumed that, after the manner of the ignorant, he was referring to an

imaginary personification of some greatly feared manifestation of

natural forces—storm, fire or earthquake, perhaps—probably fire,

though, since his reference to the devouring of his people by this giant

suggested fire, and so dismissed the subject from my mind.

As I ate, I questioned Saku concerning the trails leading back in the

direction of my people. He told me that the trail upon which he was

camped led to the summit of the hills, joining with another that led

straight down into a great valley which he thought would lead me to my

destination, but of that he was not sure, having only such knowledge of

the extent of the valley as one might glean from viewing it from the

summit of his loftiest hills. Against this trail, however, he warned me

explicitly, saying that I might use it in comparative safety only to the

summit, for upon the other side it led straight down past the great

stone tent of Raban the giant.

“The safer way,” he said, “is to follow the trail that winds along the

summit of the hills, back toward the camp of the Kalkars—a great trail

that was built in the time of Mik-do, and from which you can ride down

into the valley along any one of many trails. Always you will be in

danger of Raban until you have gone a day’s march beyond his tent, for

he rides far in search of prey; but at least you will be in less danger

than were you to ride down the canyon in which he lives.”

But Raban, the imaginary giant, did not worry me much, and though I

thanked Saku for his warnings, and let him believe that I would follow

his advice, I was secretly determined to take the shortest route to the

valley beyond the hills.

Having finished my meal I thanked my hosts and was preparing to depart

when I saw the women and children pulling down the tents to an

accompaniment of much laughter and squealing while several of the men

started up the canyon, voicing strange cries. I looked at Saku

questioningly.

“We are moving up the canyon for deer,” he explained, “and will go with

you part of the way to the summit. There are many trees across the trail

that would hinder you, and these we will move or show you a way around.”

“Must you carry all this camp equipment?” I asked him, seeing the women

struggling with the comparatively heavy hide tents, which they were

rolling and tying into bundles, while others gathered the tent poles and

bound them together.